The Gods and Demigods Read The Lightning Thief
by Black Belt Bookworm
Summary: The Greek Demigods Jason, Leo, Piper want to learn more about the famous Percy Jackson before they sail to the Roman Camp. They are finally able to convince Annabeth to tell them about her missing boyfriend when they are transported to Olympus in a flash of light. Duh. More people will join later. No flames please. This is my first fanfic so i went with something easy.
1. Prolouge

**Disclaimer: **

**My Christmas list:An Ipad, A castle, a unicorn, a dragon, directions to Camp Half-Blood, and the rights to Percy Jackson.**

**I did not get any of it :'( Santa's mean. The rights still belong to Rick Riordan.**

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**_~Camp Half-Blood, 1 week before the Quest in Son of Neptune~_**

"Annabeth!" A voice yelled.

"What Valdez?" She asked, annoyed.

"Will you tell us about Percy?"

"Of course it's _you_ asking about him. _Again."_ She muttered to herself

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing"

_"Right…_so will you?"

"Will it shut you up?"

"Yes"

"Fine. Meet me at Poseidon cabin around 6"

"Okay. Should I bring anyone?"

"Um, yeah, other than Jason and Piper bring Grover, Rachel, Thalia, Nico **(A/N this is before the quest **

**But after meeting Percy so he has not**** been ****captured yet),**

Clarisse and I think Chris, the Stolls, and Katie Gardiner would want to come too."

**_~Cabin 3, 6:00~_**

"Okay, you 3 wanted to know about Percy. On his first quest –"Annabeth started

"First quest? How many quests did he go on?" Jason asked.

"Four…maybe."

"Maybe?"

"There are a few mini quests and I'm not sure whether or not leading the titan war counts."

"Oh"

"Yeah, so anyway the first quest included-"

And she was interrupted again when a golden flash filled the room.

**_~Mount Olympus, 9 years prior~_**

The gods were having their usual arguments.

"Apollo , My hunters will _never _date you. All you do is annoy them!"

"Artemis you can't _really_ be a maiden forever."

"Can't you cut my punishment a little father. I hate babysitting those brats!"

"Shut up!" Hera, Demeter, and Hestia yelled

"So much for the peaceful goddesses" Ares muttered

They were all interrupted when a golden light filled the room. And 13 teenagers fell from the sky.

"EXPLAIN YOURSELVES MORTALS!" Zeus thundered (**A/N get it? Zeus thundered. Hehehe)**

"You mean you don't recognize us?" Thalia asked

"Should we?" Athena asked "You look familiar, are you -didn't you -you should be seven!"

"Yes what year is it?"

Athena gave them the year.

"Well…shit" Leo stated

"No duh Valdez, We traveled back nine years." Thalia retorted.

A paper airplane then hit the sleeping Dionysus in between the eyes. He didn't move.

"If I didn't know any better I'd say he was dead." Travis said

Everyone rolled their eyes.

"Someone zap him awake. And Apollo, read the note." Athena ordered.

"Wait wait wait…Apollo can _read_?" Artemis asked.

Apollo ignored her and read

_"Dear Gods and Demigods, _

_I have sent this letter because three of these demigods want to know about Percy Jackson. The world outside this hall is frozen in time. I will send five others. They are from a week after you demigods. Have them introduce themselves. No titles names and godly parents only. Try not to kill them._

_Still most amazing god,_

_Apollo_

_P.S._

_The muses have written down the quest in Ancient Greek in A mortal book. Each book will hit a random person in the head (Hermes's Idea). The five others will be sent when you finish this sentence."_

_"_So where are they?"

"I don't know I just know my idea is brilliant!"

"Yes Hermes. It was."

A book then falls from the ceiling and hits Dionysus in the head.

"YES! My first victim!"

The demigods were trying not to laugh at their camp director.

"It's called the Lightning Thief. Where are the five people?"

And five people appear in a flash a light

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**A/N:OKAY so you can probably guess who the five people are. I will upload a new chapter as soon as i figure out how. So expect a new chapter pretty soon.**


	2. I vaporize my prealgebra teacher

**A/N: Ta Da! Here it is! I have a few things to address. To that one anynomues (I am bad at spelling. Thank god for spell check) Reviewer-I am pretty sure that I'm not breaking that copyright thing. I added the disclaimer. DONE. And if you haven't noticed there are plenty of other storys. Why did you chose mine? S, yeah, bye.**

**And all you reviewers and favoriters...thanks! you peopple made my day! **

**I'm not sure if this chapter is the best or not. You decide. BBB-out! Peace ya'll. :P**

**Disclaimer: Do I look like a dude to you? I hope not. Considering i am a _girl_ i do not own Percy Jackson , any of the characters, and the rights.**

* * *

**Throne Room (Leo's POV, Sort Of)**

"They're liars and traitors and spies and thieves!" A blond haired boy ranted.

"Octavian shut up!" The boy with black hair said.

"But the filthy _graceas_! Honestly, we should not trust them. We-"

"The 'filthy _graceas_' are my friends so shut it." The black haired boy started. "As for being thieves that's only the Hermes cabin."

"Guilty" The Stolls, Chris, and Hermes admitted.

The boy turned around just realizing where they were.

"Wha-"he started

"Introduce yourselves. All of you." Zeus ordered

Piper stepped forward." I am Piper McLean, Daughter of Aphrodite

A dark skinned brown haired girl looked like she saw a ghost as Leo stepped forward "Leo Valdez, Son of Hephaestus."

"Jason Grace, Son of Jupiter/Zeus"

"Jason?" Both of the girls gasped

"Grover Underwood, Satyr"

"Travis"

"and Connor"

"Stoll" they said in unison "sons of Hermes/Mercury

"Do you always introduce yourselves like that?" Katie asked

"Yes"

"Anyway, Katie Gardner, daughter of Demeter/ Ceres"

"Chris Rodriguez, son of Hermes/Mercury"

"Clarisse La Rue, Daughter of Ares/Mars"

"Thalia, Just Thalia. Daughter of Zeus/Jupiter, Lieutenant of Artemis/Diana, yes I should be a tree but it will come up."

"Rachel Dare, Mortal, Oracle of Delphi"

"YES! I get a new Oracle! One that is _not _completely mummified!" Apollo practically screamed.

Artemis rolled her eyes.

"Nico Di Angelo, Son of Hades/Pluto"

He shot a look to the Romans like: _Don't say anything _while Zeus glared at Hades.

"Well, Romans? Are you gonna go or not?"

The blonde haired boy stepped forward "Octavian, descendant of Apollo "

A girl with black hair and dark eyes went next. "Reyna, daughter of Bellona."

"Frank Zhang, Son of Mars/Ares." Stated a bulky boy with a babyish face.

The other girl stepped forward "Hazel Levesque, daughter of Pluto/Hades" Zeus continued to glare at Hades.

Finally the black haired boy. "Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon/Neptune". Zeus now glared at Poseidon.

"Brother don't glare at me or Hades because I can clearly see _two _of you children."

He couldn't believe that this was Percy Jackson. Like _the _Percy Jackson. He didn't look much different from Jason. But he kind of radiated power, even more then Jason or Annabeth. When Leo looked at Annabeth there was the biggest smile he'd seen since I met her. Honestly he could swear her face was about to break in two.

"Can we read now?" Athena asked

"Mother, let the two sides get acquainted. Pretty Please?" Annabeth asked. Only a child of Athena would use that big word. Athena turned to Zeus.

"Let them"

The boy, Percy ran to the Greeks while Jason joined the Romans. Nico went with him. Leo and Piper stayed awkwardly with the Greeks. It seemed like they were trespassing into family time.

**The Greeks (Percy POVish)**

Percy ran over to Annabeth who was standing with the other Greeks. He was punched when he got there. Hard. Multiple times.

"Really? I'm missing for months and this is my welcome? Why am friends with you people?" Percy asked. But even he could tell he was smiling.

Annabeth glared at him and said "Two things. One, Rachel, Thalia, Clarisse, thanks for the help. Two, you remember us?"

"Yeah, I got my memories back when I…uh…never mind it'll come up."

"When you what seaweed brain?"

"Not telling"

**With the Romans (Nico POV, kind of)**

Nico walked over to the Romans and said immediately "Don't kill me!"

"Why not Di Angelo? You knew about the Greek camp? How long? How do we know you're even Roman?" Reyna questioned. Octavian didn't stop glaring

"Um you should wait until the Greeks find I visited the Roman camp a lot and kill me together, yes I knew about the Greek camp, since I was ten, and I am not telling whether I'm truly Roman or Greek. You'll have to find out with the gods" Octavian still didn't stop glaring.

"You just _had_ to say something logical didn't you?" He nodded.

**Everyone (No one's POV)**

"Well demigods? Sit down" Zeus ordered "Who will read first?"

Annabeth and Percy sat beside each other holding hands so tight as if to keep him from disappearing again.

"I will." Nico said

"Death Breath can read?" Thalia gasped nearly falling out of her chair. Everyone else (minus Octavian) cracked up. Nico pouted at his cousin.

"Aw. Just read"

**I accidently Vaporize my Pre-Algebra Teacher**

"Accidently?" Jason asked. He was ignored.

**Look I didn't want to be a half-blood**

"No one does" Thalia said.

The demigods nodded. This caused the gods to look guilty.

**If you're reading this because you think be one, my advice is**

"Now Percy, if you anyone listens to your advice they must be really, really desperate" Travis said causing everyone to crack up. Even Octavian though he only smirked. Meanwhile Percy pouted and said "What amazing friends I have"

**Close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

"It does" Most of the demigods muttered. And there are more guilty glances.

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

"Me too" All demigods said again

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages- if you feel something stirring-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before ****_they_**** sense too, and they'll come for you. Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"Percy, you didn't warn us" Travis said.

Katie walked over and smacked his head. "Shut up"

**My name is Percy Jackson. I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I went a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York. Am I a troubled kid?**

"Yes!" The older Greeks, and to their surprise, Frank and Hazel shouted.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

"Ha! He admits it!" Connor yelled.

"I have such kind friends" Percy said sarcastically.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really got bad last may, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan- twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"That's amazing" Annabeth said and her mother nodded her agreement.

**I know- it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.**

Athena and Annabeth huffed. The rest of the room nodded. That did sound like a very harsh torture.

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes. Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class.**

"That sounds like Chi-"Athena started.

"It is. No one else knows though" Grover cut in. She nodded.

"I so want Mr. Brunner for a teacher." Leo sighed

"Wish granted Leo. It's-"

"Annabeth! Don't give anything away!" Percy interrupted.

**He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"Do you think the weapons were actually Roman?" Reyna asked.

"They might have been Greek weapons and Percy couldn't tell the difference." Annabeth answered.

"Knowing Percy, probably" Rachel put in.

"Makes sense, I guess" Reyna said.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble. Boy I was wrong.**

"Shocker Percy!" Annabeth said rolling her eyes.

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

The Stolls, Nico, Leo, Jason and Frank grinned

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that… Well, you get the idea.**

"No! Percy! We want more ideas!" Connor complained

"Well, in third grade we went to the-"He began.

"Percy, they already have enough ideas! Don't give them more!" Katie, being the victim of many of their pranks, interrupted.

**This trip, I was determined to be good. All the into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"Eww, gross" the girls said in unison.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease on his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should have seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Nice way to describe your best friend Percy" Grover mumbled. Everyone else (minus Octavian) laughed at his reaction

"Grover, you could have blown your cover!" Annabeth said smirking.

"Hey, they were good enchiladas!" He replied

"Right, I'll believe that"

"Just read Nico" He grumbled

"Well why should I? You could say please or at least ask _nicely_" Nico said 'innocently' causing more laughter.

"Not you too" Grover complained. Nico grinned. "Fine"Grover snapped "Nico, will you _please _read"

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Mildly entertaining?" Jason asked grinning

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled. Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

"Grover! Why would you hold back a fight?" Clarisse complained.

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. "That's it." I started to get up but up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. "You're already on probation" he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens." Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

"Me too" most the demigods said

**In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get into.**

"Dun dun dun…" Leo and the Stolls said together.

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery. **

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Longer" Zeus said

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx at the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a ****_stele,_**** for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"What kind of teacher doesn't want students to learn?"Apollo questioned.

"An inhu-"Annabeth started

"Annabeth, Don't give anything away!" Percy interrupted.

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right through your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.**

"Silly Percy, we all know that's Nico!" Thalia exclaimed. Nico pouted causing people to laugh and Hades unsure whether to be amused or offended.

"Okay so there's Ghost King, Death Breath, Zombie Dude…"Annabeth trailed off look at Rachel.

"And now Devil Spawn! Perfect!" Rachel yelled. Nico rolled his eyes and continued to read.

**She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

"A month? Harsh" Leo commented

**One time, after she'd made erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Grover!" Thalia and Annabeth yelled.

"You could've made his scent stronger!" Annabeth said.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you****_ shut up?"_**

**It came out louder then I meant it too.**

"Surprise!" Hazel said sarcastically at the same time Annabeth said, "Shocker Seaweed Brain!"They grinned at each other.

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele.**

**"Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because…"**

**"Well…" I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-**

"GOD?" Zeus yelled outraged.

"My lord, he was-"Annabeth started

"Dad! Shush! He'll learn the difference in about two seconds" Thalia yelled back.

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

**"Titan," I corrected myself.**

"See?" Thalia said

**"And…he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-_**

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

**"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the titans," I continued, "and the gods won"**

"Years of fighting and you summed it up with 'there was this big fight'?" Jason asked staring at Percy.

**Some snickers from the group.**

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids'."**

"I can arrange that." Hermes said

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted" Thalia, Leo, and the Stolls said together

"Creepy" Nico mumbled as he read the next line

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

"We think like goat boy!" The Stolls said looking scared. Leo didn't care that much. Thalia, however, was another story.

"Oh gods help me. I think like the Stolls, Leo, _and _Goat Boy! Someone help me!" She said looking horrified.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter read then her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"Those ears have ruined so many pranks" Connor sighed.

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered the remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"They are doofuses" Thalia and Artemis said at the same time. Artemis beamed at her lieutenant.

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go- intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"They have" Athena commented sadly.

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

**"Oh."**

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

"It's for the best Percy"

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person that ever lives, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn't expect me to be ****_as good;_**** he expected me to be ****_better. _****And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"Probably was" The Greeks said sadly.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than anything I'd ever seen over the city. I figured it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

*Pointed looks at Zeus and Poseidon who began whistle 'innocently'*

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

"Typical" Thalia muttered.

"Is she one of yours?" Demeter asked looking at Hermes.

"Defiantly not. The book said 'trying'. My children could pickpocket someone like it's a sixth sense" He said looking rather proud. His children let out a sigh of relief.

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from ****_that_**** school- the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"Did it work?" Jason asked.

Grover said, "Doubt it" at the same time Percy said, "Probably not".

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay me off sometimes. I mean- I'm not a genius."**

"Understatement of the century" Rachel said causing laughter from everybody but Percy, who pouted, and Octavian, who rolled his eyes.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, can I have your apple?"**

Grover groaned. This caused people to crack up, yes, even Octavian. All he was think was-_ And I thought our fauns were stupid. The Greek ones are even worse. _

**I didn't have much an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me back to Yancy, remind me to try harder, even this was my sixth school in six years**

"Wow, Annabeth your right. His record is worse than mine" Piper said.

"Of course she's right. When is Annabeth not right?" Leo asked

**And I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand the sad look she'd give me.**

"Why can't you two be like that?" Hera asked Ares and Hephaestus.

"You threw me off a mountain." Hephaestus suggested

"You're psycho" Percy offered

"It'd make me a wuss." Ares replied

"You're a –"

"ENOUGH! I get it. You all hate me!"

"Yep"

"Pretty much

"Defiantly"

"Yes. I don't feel sorry for you. It's your own fault." Nico read before Hera got the chance to blast Annabeth.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.**

"I should build this when we get back" Leo commented. Annabeth glared at him. He gulped.

"…Um…after the boat, of course."

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she's gotten tired of stealing from the tourists- and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

The room (minus Octavian) glared.

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painting her face with liquid Cheetos.**

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." A wave roared in my ears.**

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"**

**"-The water-"**

**"-Like it grabbed her-"**

"Cool" said the three new Greeks.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

"Percy!" Hermes and his children groaned.

"You never, _ever,_ guess the punishment." Travis explained.

"It only makes it worse." Connor ended.

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. ****_I _****pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

"For good reason" the satyr said to Percy.

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—****_will_**—**stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "****_Now_****."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"Those are pretty scary" Connor said shivering

"Doubt it's better than mine" Thalia countered

"No way! Mine is the best!" Ares declared.

"Mine is the best" Percy corrected.

"Let's test them on three people then." Thalia proposed. "I choose Jason"

"Fine, Frank."

"Clarisse"

The glares were given to Jason, Frank, and Clarisse- who was unaffected.

"HA! Mine is the Scariest!" Percy yelled. Annabeth rolled her eyes at her boyfriend

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

_She got over exited._ Hades thought, suspicious of the teacher.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

"Yeah right. You could never be that lucky." Nico said

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

"Major uh-oh" Everyone said

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

"Probably did" Frank commented.

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

Hazel raised her eyebrow. "You? Did the safe thing? _You_?" Causing many snickers from the group.

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

People shot looks at Zeus.

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

Frank, Nico, Connor, Travis, and Leo smirked. "Genius!" Leo Shouted.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on ****_Tom Sawyer _****from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

Annabeth shot her boyfriend a look. "That's what you were thinking about?" She asked, exasperated.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

Everyone paled realizing what monster it was. Hades nodded, knowing he was right, not taking his eyes off the floor. Poseidon looked murderous glaring at Hades.

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

"Um… is this guy crazy? What will a pen do?" Leo asked.

"Ah, the amount of times that pen has saved us." Travis sighed. Reyna, Octavian, Piper, Leo, and Jason all had the same confused look.

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

"Ooooh" Piper said.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

"Wimp" Ares muttered.

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

"That's natural for a demigod?" Hera asked.

"Pretty much" Clarisse answered

"Most of the time" Percy added.

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. ****_Hisss!_**

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

"No such thing" Demeter explained when people looked at her.

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Who?" Thalia asked

**I said, "Who?"**

"Oh Crap! I think like Kelp Head! Help me!"

**"Our ****_teacher._** **Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"Grover you need lying lessons" Hermes stated "Connor, Travis, Chris, Can you fit him in?"

"Travis?" Chris asked. "You have the notebook. Isn't Tuesday at 3:00 open?"

"Not on Tuesday. Thursday is open though, how's that Grover?"

"Uh…fine" he said knowing he couldn't escape them.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead. **

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

"See Grover, _that's_ how you lie. Chiron, who knew?" Connor said

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"That's the end of the chapter. Who's gonna read next?"

"I will" Percy volunteered.

* * *

**The Apocolyse! Percy Reading! What next? I don't know yet. You'll see later. It might take longer than last time. But between school, karate, practicing, after school art, it's just so-Urgh! Anyway I'm thinking of adding Will Solace, Gwen, and Dakota, and anyone else you want like Drew, Lacy, Malcolm, IDK. What to you think? I'm out. Bye**

**-BBB**


	3. VERY IMPORTANT

**VERY IMPORTANT! VERY IMPORTANT! VERY IMPORTANT! VERY IMPORTANT! VERY IMPORTANT! VERY IMPORTANT! VERY IMPORTANT!**

**A/N. I know you hate these, i hate them too, but this is pretty important. Sorry if you thought this was a chapter. I'll put it up once i finish typing this a/n. I promise. Any way important points to say...er, type. This one guest said she reported me because ****The Lighting Thief**** belongs to Rick Riordan ****_even _****though i said they belongs to him.**

**To that _special_ guest- Why did you chose to report me? If you didn't notice, there are _tons _of stories like this. Do you report all of _those _stories? And why are you reading this anyway? Do you just search stuff like this to report? If the answer is yes...GET A LIFE!**

**To everyone else- I'll keep posting anyway. If this gets taken down you know why. If it gets taken down i won't do the rest of the series. I'll just do regular ones. K? By the way- you people who favorited, followed or reviewed-YA'LL ARE AMAZING! bye now.**

**~Black Belt Bookworm**


	4. Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death

**A/N- Hey yo peoples! Bye you peoples! I hope you read my A/N! It's IMPORTANT! Anyway...**

**Disclaimer:**

**My X-mas list remember? Ipad, The rights, blah blah blah? I GOT THE IPAD! ME VERY HAPPY! (BUt's it's from school so there are soooo many blocks) I still, sadly, do not own Percy Jackson.**

* * *

"I will" Percy volunteered. Thalia gasped with Rachel.

"It's the Apocalypse! The world _will _end in 2012 after all!" She screamed. The other (older) Greeks looked worried. The Romans laughed.

"Percy reading! Without Annabeth forcing him! Thalia's right! Gods help us!" Rachel yelled. Percy rolled his eyes and read.

"**Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death"**

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

"Creepy" Leo muttered. "I hate the mist."

"I'm still confused. Since when can Percy read?"Annabeth said

"It's in Greek." Percy told her.

"It still doesn't make sense"

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

Thalia stared at Percy.

"What?" She rolled her eyes

"What?" Hazel held back a laugh when she realized what Thalia was trying say.

"Dear Percy, We thought you knew by now. You _are_ psycho" She answered for Thalia

"_Thank _You, Hazel"

**It got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed. **

**Almost. **

**But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying**

"Grover. You the worst liar ever!" Chris exclaimed.

**Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum. I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat. **

Poseidon glared at Hades. The demigods (minus Nico) shivered.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year. **

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

"Percy, you shouldn't have let your grades drop. They were bad enough to begin with"

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good. The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

"That's what happens when you call your teacher an old, drunken, idiot." Annabeth mused

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine. **

**I was homesick.**

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties. **

**And yet... There were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, **

Grover smiled at Percy.

**Even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me. **

Grover frowned at Percy.

**I'd miss Latin class, too-Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. **

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

"Good"

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. **

Athena and Annabeth looked horrified. "You shouldn't treat a book that way"

Percy smiled sheepishly. "Oops."

**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one- eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

"I can now" He said to the people staring at him.

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

"Yikes"

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson. **

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried. **

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. **

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... Worried about Percy, sir. " **

**I froze. **

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,**

"Right" Frank said sarcastically

** But I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult. **

"Good point"

**I inched closer. **

**"... Alone this summer, "Grover was saying."I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-" **

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more. " **

"But if we did that he still wouldn't be at camp!" Annabeth exclaimed

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line-" **

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can. " **

**"Sir, he saw her... "**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that. " **

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again. " Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean." **

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-" **

"Now he's interested" Rachel grumbled.

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud. **

"Percy needs stealth lessons." Connor told Travis "Isn't there an open spot"

"After Grover's lying lessons.

**Mr. Brunner went silent. **

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. **

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

"He had it at the school?" Athena asked

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside. **

**A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on. **

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck. **

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice. " **

**"Mine neither, " Grover said. "But I could have sworn ... " **

**"Go back to the dorm, "Mr. Brunner told him."You've got a long day of exams tomorrow. " **

**"Don't remind me." **

"Grover you have my newfound respect" Travis said suddenly

"Why?"

"You had to take exams every time you went back to school to sniff out half-bloods" he and the rest of the demigods shivered.

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office. **

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. **

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm. **

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

** "Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?" **

**I didn't answer. **

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?" **

**"Just... Tired. " **

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed. **

"That didn't help. I still read your emotions. I just thought you were nervous about exams."

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing. **

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger. **

Everyone nodded.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside. **

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. **

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... It's for the best. " **

"He's going to make it worse isn't he?" Annabeth groaned

"Maybe

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips. **

"That little bi-" Thalia started but Nico interrupted.

"Thalia! Think of the little people!"

She rolled her eyes. "Death Breath, you are the youngest person here!"

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir." **

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time. " **

**My eyes stung. **

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out. **

**"Right," I said, trembling. **

**"No, no, "Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... You're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be-" **

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.**

**"Percy-" **

**But I was already gone.  
On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. **

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"I take offense to that!" Poseidon said

"Percy, you are _the_ Nobody." Annabeth said causing Percy, Annabeth, Clarisse, and Grover to burst out laughing and the others to shoot them confused looks.

** They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

** "Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool. " **

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed. **

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city. **

"Hmm… some coincidence." Leo wondered aloud.

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he  
expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound. **

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. **

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"You nearly gave me a heart attack." Grover grumbled.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?" **

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam. **

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?" **

**"Oh ... Not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..." **

**"Grover-" **

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ... " **

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

"Too true" Hermes said

**His ears turned pink. **

Like they were now.

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer. **

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like: **

**_Grover Underwood _**

**_Keeper _**

**_Half-Blood Hill _**

**_Long Island, New York _**

**_(800) 009-0009 _**

**"What's Half-" **

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... Summer address." **

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

Thalia snorted. "Yeah right"

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion. "**

**He nodded. "Or ... Or if you need me." **

**"Why would I need you?"**

"Harsh" Piper commented

**It came out harsher than I meant it to. **

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you." **

**I stared at him. **

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me. **

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?" **

"My dad, Nico's dad, evil monsters, the list goes on" Thalia counted causing Poseidon to pale.

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else. We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat was an old-fashioned fruit stand. **

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen. **

"No" Annabeth and Poseidon whispered.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. **

Almost everyone's (meaning not Leo or the Stolls) eyes nearly popped out their heads**.**

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me. **

"No" Annabeth whispered hoarsely.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching. **

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-" **

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?" **

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?" **

"Not funny, Percy." Thalia whispered.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all. "**

Now, under normal circumstances Nico or Leo or someone would have said something. But no one laughed or even smiled at the similarities between Grover and Thalia.

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath. **

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on. " **

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there." **

**"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back. Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. **

Everyone paled.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla.** **At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. The passengers cheered. **

"Sure. Now it works" Katie muttered

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!" **

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. **

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering. "Grover?" **

**"Yeah?" **

**"What are you not telling me?" **

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?" **

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?" **

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw." **

**"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn." **

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older. **

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord." **

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal. **

"Big deal. Very big deal" Poseidon said faintly.

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time." **

**"What last time?" **

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth. " **

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?" **

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me. "**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could. **

**"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked. **

**No answer. **

**"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin**

"Were you?" Frank asked.

"…Maybe"

"What did choose?" Leo said trying to lighten the mood.

"At first I couldn't choose so I waited 'til he was claimed and decided on bribing Tyson to bring some weird sea flower"

"I think he'd like that" Thalia chimed in.

"I'm alive and well and right here you know" Percy said "So who wants to read next"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Give it here Seaweed Brain"

* * *

**There! Done! Yay! **

**~BBB**


	5. Grover unexpectly loses his pants

**Ta Da! Here you go! Three things. One, to all you people who don't like this- I will keep posting whether you like it or not. I won't continue if this gets taken down. Which brings us to the Second thing- Don't worry if you like it. i have a backup plan. (It's just not on this website visit my profile for details) and third, to thealphamale- Thanks for the idea but like i said, i have a backup plan. I'm settiing it up as you read. Now, Continue!**

**Disclaimer: If i owned PJO there would be no movie. Though some may celebrate the fact, do you honestly think i own it?**

* * *

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Give it here Seaweed Brain" Percy handed the book to Annabeth. She opened it up to the right chapter.  
**"Grover unexpectedly loses his pants"**  
People stared at Grover who smiled a little sheepishly  
**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got the bus terminal.**  
People now stared at Percy in disbelief that he could do something that idiotic. Even for Percy.  
I** know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "why does this always happen?" and "why does it always have to be sixth grade?"**  
"okay you have a point." Frank said slowly.  
**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**  
The guy snickered at Grover.  
**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**  
**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and first" I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother before you meet** **her.**  
" Awesome!" Thalia yelled  
"amazing" Annabeth said smiling.  
"Perfect" Rachel added.  
"the best!" Nico said happily/  
"that's two words Devil Spawn" Thalia countered  
"I hate you. Second her awesomeness can not fit into one word so HA!"  
"...good point"  
All the others kept thinking- _how amazing is this woman to make four of the most powerful demigods act like this?_**_(_****Aka-Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, and Nico) Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world,**  
"so true" Percy, Thalia, Annabeth, Nico, Rachel, and Poseidon sighed.  
**Which just proves my theory that the best people get the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five,**  
Glares at Zeus.  
**And she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**  
Everyone felt sympathy for Sally. (Yes, even Octavian, but only a teeny, tiny, bit)  
"Poor lady." Piper sighed.  
**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**  
"aww" Aphrodite and Piper cooed.  
"Piper is finally going Aphrodite! I wondered how long that would take" Leo said. Piper punched him the arm making him wince.  
**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of a smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.**  
"I think she still loves you Poseidon." Aphrodite informed.  
**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**  
**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**  
"that's a lie, inside another lie, inside another lie! This woman is incredible!" Hermes exclaimed.  
"I know" Poseidon said smiling.  
**She worked odd jobs, took night class to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**  
"huge understatement." Thalia snickered.

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**  
"Eww" the girls(yes, yes, even Clarisse) all said. The guys looked revolted.  
**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along... Well, when I got home is a good a example.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**  
The girls wrinkled their noses.  
**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**  
**"Where's my mom?"**  
**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**  
"That's it? No welcome back? No Good to see you?" Thalia yelled outraged  
Annabeth held back a laugh as she read the next line.  
**That was it. No ****_Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?_**  
The rood erupted into laughter. Thalia looked horrified.  
Nico recovered temporarily and said very slowly, "Thalia, run for the hills. Don't look back. Run until your mind is Percy-free. Come back when your mind is pure."  
Thalia nodded seriously and ran out of the room sending the room farther into laughter. Thalia came back about ten minutes later and Annabeth resumed reading.  
**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tusk less walrus in thrift store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**  
"Eww! He's in major need of makeover!" Aphrodite screamed  
"oh trust me. He got a makeover." Percy said smiling evilly. Grover and Annabeth smiled too.  
**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I came home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**  
Everyone glared. "What. The. Hell." Thalia said slowly, mostly to keep herself from exploding.  
Travis corrected her to lighten the mood. "Thalia, I think the correct term is, what the _Hades."_  
"Stop using my name as a curse word!"  
**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**  
**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**  
The girls looked sick.  
**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**  
"Oh" said the smarter gods. (Meaning Athena, Artemis, Hera, Hestia and Hephaestus.)  
"**You took a taxi from the bus station," he said."Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks change. somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**  
**Eddie, the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "the kid just got here."**  
"he's semi-decent. I'll give him that." Rachel noticed.  
"That's as good as Gabe's friends will get." Percy grumbled.  
**"Am I right?" Gabe repeated.**  
**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**  
The females in the room looked disgusted.  
"**Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw it on the table. "I hope you lose."**  
Hermes sat up. "We can arrange that. Right D?"  
Dionysus nodded. "Normally I wouldn't do a favor for one of those brats,but, for this pathetic excuse for a mortal, I'll make an exception."  
"**Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**  
**I slammed the door the door to my room, which wasn't really my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**  
**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**  
"ah the beauty of sarcasm. Where would we be without it?" Connor said grinning.  
**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**  
**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic- how he'd made me promise not to go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone- something- was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**  
"Paranoid much?" Apollo asked amused.  
"We're demigods, we pretty much have to be." Percy answered with the demigods nodding.  
**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**  
**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**  
**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**  
"Mama's boy" snickered Travis and Connor. Needless to say they got shocked, punched, attacked by the dead, sprayed with saltwater, and almost got stampeded by cows. The demigods stared at Hera.  
"What? Mothers should be like that." Annabeth began to read again, still shocked about the Hera thing.  
**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is s warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, nut I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all of the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**  
"She is a miracle worker!" Hazel exclaimed.  
"**Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!**  
**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central.**  
The boys all got a dreamy looks on their faces. The girls rolled their eyes and waved their hands in front of the boys faces. When that didn't work Annabeth planted a kiss on Percy's cheek. Instead of following her lead Thalia slapped Nico. The girls followed her lead. The gods watched their children with amused expressions.  
**She'd brought me home a bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home. **  
"Lucky!" Leo pouted. Percy stuck his tongue out at him. Poseidon thought for second. "How about we all visit the candy shop after this chapter? That can be our break." The girls all shot Poseidon grateful looks. He was actually hoping to see Sally again. He let Percy hear his thoughts. Percy smiled at his dad. Unfortunately , Aphrodite heard, squeaked in delight, and beamed at Poseidon.  
**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything o hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about me getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**  
I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.  
Travis, Connor, and Leo had to try their best not to say something.  
**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally- how about some bean dip, huh?"**  
**I gritted my teeth.**  
Like everyone else in the room.  
**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**  
**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latheadmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on a year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**  
"Wow. You did put a good spin on the year. A really good spin." Clarisse stated.  
**And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. Until that trip to the museum...**  
**"what?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscious, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**  
**"No, Mom."**  
"You shouldn't lie to your mother!" Hera yelled  
Annabeth put the book in her lap. "Seaweed Brain, as much as it kills me, I agree with Hera."  
"Just read Greek!" Octavian shouted. The Romans( including Percy and Jason) glared at him. The Greeks didn't know it was used as an insult.  
**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid. **  
**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me. **  
**"I have a surprise for you." She said. "We're going to the beach."**  
**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**  
**"Three nights- same cabin."**  
**"When?"**  
**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**  
**I couldn't believe it. my mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**  
"Yeah right" Piper growled.  
**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**  
**I wanted to punch him, **  
"Please do" Frank, Clarisse, and Ares whined.  
**But I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**  
"That must have killed you. To be nice to Gabe. What nightmare." Jason said shivering.  
**"I was on my way honey," she told Gabe. "We were talking about the trip."**  
**Gabe's eyes got small."The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**  
**"I knew it." I muttered. "He won't let us go."**  
"He better." Poseidon growled.  
"**Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your stepfather is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," She added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works"**  
"Ah, bribery." Hermes sighed. "Always works." His sons nodded.  
**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip...it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**  
Aphrodite screamed. "You can't put a budget on clothes!"  
"Yes honey, it is wrong but it won't do any good to burst someones eardrum." Ares comforted. Athena started clapping.  
"What?"  
"You actually said something intelligent!" The entire room started clapping and laughing. Once everyone(Apollo, Hermes, Leo and the Stolls)calmed down Annabeth began to read again.  
"**Yes, honey," my mother said.**  
**"And you won't take my car anyway but there and back."**  
**"We'll be very careful."**  
**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip...And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**  
**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week. **  
"Do it! Do it! Do it!" Became a chant through out the room.  
**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. **  
**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**  
"It was all for you Perce." Grover answered.  
**"I'm sorry,"I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**  
**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**  
**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**  
**He went back to his game.**  
**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about...whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**  
**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes- the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride- as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**  
**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**  
**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking- and more important, his '78 Camaro- for the whole weekend.**  
"Of course he cared more about his car." Thalia grumbled.  
**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," He warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**  
"Oops" Percy said grinning evilly and high fived Grover.  
"Like Percy would be the one driving." Nico rolled his eyes.  
**Like I'd be the one driving.**  
"Nico, take your own advice." Thalia advised seriously. Again people laughed. This time no one ran out the door.  
I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.  
**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture Grover had made on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement towards Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon.**  
The room cheered. Percy got up and bowed.  
**Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**  
**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out of the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**  
Annabeth and Athena shuddered a little.  
**And most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**  
**I loved the place.**  
"You would. Only Percy would." Katie said.  
**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going there even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the place was special to her. It was where she'd met my dad.**  
**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing in her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**  
**We got there at sunset, opened all the windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom brought from work.**  
"Can you explain the blue food?" Octavian asked bitterly.  
**I guess I should explain the blue food.**  
**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed really small at the time. But, ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies.**  
**She bought blue corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This- along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson- was proof she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She had a rebellious streak, like me.**  
Many demigods snorted.  
"Streak? You have a rebellious 'streak' 3 miles wide." Nico snorted.  
**When it got dark we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in a plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**  
**Eventually, I got up to the nerve to ask what was always on my mind whenever we went to Montauk- my father. Mom's eyes got all misty. I figured she'd tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**  
**"He was kind Percy," She said. "Tall, handsome, and Powerful. But gentle too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**  
"Tall and powerful, yes. Handsome, kind, and gentle? Please." Athena snickered.  
**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**  
"I am" Poseidon said softly.  
**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me?**  
"Many things, Many, Many, things, Percy." Annabeth told him.  
**A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ average and kicked out of the sixth school in six years. **  
"New record!" Travis shouted.  
"Travis, trust me, my record gets better."  
**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean … when he left?"**  
**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**  
**"But... He knew me as a baby."**  
**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were you born."**  
**I tried to square that up with the fact that I seemed to remember... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**  
Zeus glared at Poseidon. "You visited him?" He growled.  
"Yes. I would break any rule to see my son, so deal with it."

Most the demigods felt envious that Percy had such a caring father.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never told me outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told he'd never even seen me...**  
**I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**  
Poseidon looked down sadly making almost all the demigods protest that Percy no longer felt that way. When he felt a little better Annabeth began to read again.  
**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**  
**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**  
**"I don't know, honey" Her voice was heavy. "I think... I think we'll have to do something."**  
**"Because you don't want me around?"**  
**Percy yelped under all the glares. He hid** behind Annabeth, who punched him hard in the gut before reading.  
**I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**  
**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**  
**Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said- that it was best for me to send me away. **  
**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**  
"That's a good thing! Without you we'd all be dead! " Katie said.  
**"You say that like its a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**  
**"Safe from what?"**  
"My dad, Nico's dad, most monsters, half the other gods, need I go on?" Thalia said.  
**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me- all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**  
**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**  
"You sent a cyclops to stalk your son?" Athena said, disturbed.  
"Course not! That would freak him out. Probably a monster that wanted to eat him."  
**Before that- a really early memory. I was in preschool, and the teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found my playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**  
People stared at Percy. He just shrugged. He'd done bigger things then that.  
**In every school something creepy happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move. **  
**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, ad I didn't want that.**  
**"I've tried to keep you as close o me as I could," my mom said. "they told me it was a mistake. But there's only one other option Percy- the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**  
**"My father wanted me to a special school?"**  
**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**  
The Greeks cheered. The boys started to chant.  
"Camp Half-Blood! Camp Half-Blood! Camp Half-Blood! Camp Half-Blo-"  
"Shut up and let Annabeth read!" Thalia yelled at them. Jason stopped immediately. The rest of the group stuck out their tongues. Clarisse, who was the closest, smacked Leo upside the head, then moved to Nico. As she got closer to the Stolls,they yelped and hid.  
The Romans watched amused while Octavian watched with disgust.  
**My head was spinning. Why would my dad- who hadn't even stayed long enough to see me be born- talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she mentioned it before?**  
"Because it would make your scent stronger." Grover told the book.  
**"I'm sorry Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**  
**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp..."**  
**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that's if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

**That night I had a vivid dream**.  
Annabeth, Thalia, Nico and Grover groaned. Seeing the questioning stares Annabeth said, "His dreams are the worst. Worst then most demigods."  
**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle,**  
People looked at Zeus and Poseidon.  
**were trying kill each other at the edge of the surf. **  
"When are they not?" Hades mused.  
"you do know you're usually part of the killing each other thing, right?" Hestia questioned.  
"So?"  
"Never mind."  
**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**  
People looked at Hades who shrugged. Annabeth kept reading to avoid questions, and spoil the book.  
**I ran towards them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, nut I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, ****_No!_**  
"That's it? That's not the worst you've ever had." Annabeth said.

"i won! even your son knows it!" Zeus bragged. Poseidon merely rolled his eyes.

**I woke with a start.**  
**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**  
**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**  
**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.**  
**"Or the ocean was really, really mad." Frank muttered.**  
**Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand up on end.**  
"The Minotaur." Grove whispered.  
**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice- someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**  
**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**  
**Grover stood framed in the doorway against the backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... He wasn't exactly Grover.**  
"What?" Leo asked looking at Grover. Grover zipped his lip and threw the imaginary key behind him.  
"Will everyone be quiet? I Sense a fight!" Said a certain god of war  
**"searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**  
**My mother looked at me in terror- not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**  
**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "what happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**  
**I stood frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**  
**"O Zeu Kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"**  
"Nope. Shame, Percy. Shame." Travis teased.  
"Shut up and let Annabeth finish the chapter!" Thalia yelled at him.  
**'I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on-**  
**The group snickered.**  
**And where his legs should be... Where his legs should be...**  
**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "****_Percy_****. Tell me ****_now!"_**  
"You should" Hera advised.  
**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**  
"At least you told her." Hera said.  
**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!" **  
**Grover ran for the Camaro- but he wasn't running, exactly . He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he coild run so fast and still limp when he walked.**  
**"Well? How? Enough suspense!" Leo yelled. Piper slapped him in the back of the head. "Idiot"**  
**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**  
"Dun, Dun, Duuuun!" Nico, Connor, and Travis said together.  
"Oh that. I already knew that." Leo said.  
"So who wants to read next?" Annabeth asked.  
"I'll take it" Grover offered.  
"WAIT!" Leo yelled.  
"What?"  
"Poseidon said we were going to the candy shop!"  
"Fine," Zeus sighed. "this can be your break."  
"YES!" All the males in the throne room shouted.

* * *

**Candy Shop chapter next! Yum! Yay! Hooray! So chapters will take longer now. I'm seriosly busy every night of the week except Friday and Saturday. Stressful. Any way...**

**Love it? Like it? Hate it? Want it to be thrown out the window and replaced? (Hope not)**

**~BBB :)**


	6. The Candy Shop! :)

**A/N! I'm back! Sorry i took so long. But how about you try to do this. It ain't easy. ****_Ecspecially_**** if you have karate 3 nights a week, Robotics twice, art on Tuesdays, and studying/Hw. Gods help me! And check out my story _Dear Percy, _I need your opinions.**

**DISCLAIMER: if i owned PJO would i really be writing on ****_fan_**** ?**

* * *

"To the candy shop!" Travis yelled.

"CANDY! CANDY! CANDY!" was a chant throughout the room.

"WAIT!" Apollo screamed.

"What?" Ares whined

"None of _my _kids are here"

"I'm here," Octavian said, hurt.

"You're a descendant, you count as half,"

"Fine, if you stop complaining you can bring one of your children. Then everyone can have two kids here," Hestia suggested, playing peacemaker

"'Kay, I'll make a list with all of your children." Annabeth offered. "Percy, Help me with the Roman demigods"

The List

Zeus Thalia, Jason

Poseidon Percy, Tyson

Hades Nico, Hazel

Demeter Katie, Gwen

Hermes Connor, Travis, Chris

Apollo Octavian, Will, Ella

Ares Clarisse, Frank

Hephateus Leo, Nyssa

Aphrodite Piper, Drew

Dionysus Dakota, Pollux

Athena Annabeth, Malcolm

Bellona Reyna, Hylla

**(A/N- I'm guessing Gwen's parent, I have no idea)**

"How did you make it so fast and organized?" Percy asked. "And _why?"_

"I'm a daughter of Athena, Seaweed Brain,"

"I don't have a daughter named Ella" Apollo said.

"She's a harpy. I figured since you only count Octavian as half *snickers* she would count as the other half." Percy said. "And it would keep Tyson from being lonely." He added as an afterthought.

"Hurry up and summon them so we can GET CANDY!" Travis screamed

And the room filled once again with golden light.

"Ow!" Dakota groaned. "What happened?"

"More people? Really?" Reyna rolled eyes.

"Well, it would get people to shut up. " Apollo defended himself.

"Can you _please _explain to us what we're doing here?" Hylla demaded.

"Reading about Percy's adventures" Her sister answered.

"And we're here why?" Will asked

"Your dad decided to be a brat and wanted one of his children and-"Annabeth started. People started to zone out leaving Will the only one listening because he had to. "-And that's why you're here."

"It's over?" Connor's head snapped up. "Thank the gods."

"You're welcome" Chimed several voices.

"Again, TO THE CANDY SHOP!" Connor yelled.

**_*At the Candy Shop*_**

Once they arrived they found a pretty blonde teenager working the counter. She looked at the group, and then looked at the back of the store, the office.

In a bored tone she said "May I help you?"

"Um… I was wondering if Sally Jackson worked here." Percy told her. She looked him over and smiled a little.

"Who are you and why do you want to know?"

"She's my…" He hesitated. "She's a very good friend of my mothers. I'm also friends with her son, Percy. She has arrangements with my mom and she sent me here to clear up the facts. Can you please get her uh… Ashlyn?"

"Name?"

"Uh…"

"Peter Johnson" Annabeth answered for him. Ashlyn nodded and shot the boys a flirtatious smile before heading towards the break room. The girls glared at her the entire way there. Sally arrived with Ashlyn a few minutes later and looked over the group. Her eyes fell on Poseidon she smiled widely.

"Ah, Ashlyn I can take these customers. Why don't you take your break now?" She nodded and shot the boys one last smile before going to the back room. Sally turned to the group.

"Ashlyn's new. I have to show her the ropes." Sally informed the group. "Well, you came here for candy didn't you?"

"CANDY! CANDY!" Travis shouted. The group went into chaos. Poseidon found Swedish fish, Pop rocks became Zeus's new love, Ares discovered Mars Bars, Apollo found Life Savers, Hermes is now obsessed with Laffy Taffy. And the children haven't even been mentioned. If you thought the ADHD was bad, well, try seeing a large group of teens, all ADHD, hyped up on sugar. ADHD is nothing. And Tyson… well, Tyson found Reese's and went _insane._ Ella kept spouting random candy facts.

"Candy. Candy is full of sugar. Sugar originated from sugar cane. Candy." **(A/N-Sorry. :'(that's the best I could do)**

When the group finished stuffing the bags until they were about to explode, they walked back up to the counter.

"Uh… how do we-"Malcolm started.

"Allow me" Poseidon said. He waved his hand and made a hundred or so dollars appear and handed them to Sally. She rolled her eyes.

"If you weren't immortal, you would probably receive a lecture on how that won't get you anywhere in life"

"We already do" Poseidon muttered, glancing at Demeter and Hera.

At that moment a little boy around seven years walked in. He had jet black hair and sea green eyes.

"Mommy, Smelly Gabe said he was busy and to come down here today." He seemed to just notice the large group. "Hi. Are you friends with my mom?"

Older Percy looked at Annabeth. "You'd think I'd remember meeting myself."

Sally answered her son. "Yes, honey, these are my friends. Why don't you-"Percy noticed Poseidon.

"I know you." He thought. "Uh…Are you Gabe's friend? No. Umm… Daddy?"

"Yes, I am your father, but I'm only visiting."

"But Mommy told me you were lost at sea."

"Well…uh… the boat drifted to Africa, where we shipwrecked along the coast, traveled to the nearest airport, and saved money until I had enough to come back. I leave for another voyage tomorrow." People gave him a look

"But you can't leave! Stay with mom and get rid of Gabe! Please!" He said putting on an adorable puppy dog face.

"I'm sorry, I can't. It'll put you in danger. Even more danger."

"Danger from what?"

"Things. Bad, mean things. Why don't you go do something in the back okay?"

"Okay." He walked to the back room where Ashlyn was and started talking to her about gods knows what.

"Well Sally, I guess this is goodbye, for now. I'll see you when I see you." He gave her a quick peck on the cheek before walking out the door.

"Wait!" Ashlyn came running out "Sally, Percy wants to talk to you." Sally nodded and walked to the back room. "Sir… may I talk to the teenagers? I have a _special _deal."

The gods hesitated but nodded. They looked at the demigods before leaving.

"What was that about?" Leo asked. Ashlyn looked at the demigods.

"Okay, so about that deal," she said. "Hold on" She picked up her phone and dialed a number.

"Yeah, we got about, say, 25 demigods here. Bring Kelsey and Taylor as well. Bye Bryson" The demigods silently drew their weapons. "Hold on now. Don't kill me. I have to explain the deals. Okay so, this is mainly for the girls. You can willingly let us eat the boys and live or you can fight and die with them." Then three new girls came in, saw the boys, smiled, and began to transform, becoming empousi. **(Sp? And who saw that coming? I'd guess 99.9%. And I ****_know _****Sally is clear-sighted but let's say Ashlyn avoided her, okay? Rachel didn't bother to look at her. She was staring at the candy. Thanks)**

"Why would we _not _fight?" Clarisse muttered.

"Tell me about it. Their stealing our boyfriends" Gwen said

"Dakota's not you boyfriend" Hazel told her

"Yet"** (1)**

"Can we just kick their asses already?" Annabeth interrupted

"Sorry"

The entire time the boys had been completely frozen except Percy, Grover and Tyson, who were trying unsuccessfully to snap the boys from their trance.

"Come on boys. Can't I have one little kiss?" One of them purred. She advanced on Travis, and Katie leapt forward, slashing the monster in her ribs causing her to erupt into golden dust.

"That looked a little like Katie, didn't she?" Grover whispered to Percy

"Why aren't we helping?"

"Cause Lady Aphrodite told me she's gonna have the girls who have crushes on the guys to save them."

"Wow Aphrodite. Just wow" Another girl, Bryson, started toward Connor. Drew seemed to be arguing in with her.

"Fine!" She sighed. She threw her dagger at the empousa landing right between the eyes. She saw everyone staring at her.

"What? I can fight! I just don't like to because I get all sweaty and gross." Regular Drew was back. Meanwhile Grover and Percy were having a whispering war.

"Oh my gods! That means Drew likes Connor!" **(2)**

"No way, it might just mean no one likes Connor and Drew doesn't like anyone here."

"Please! Gods can talk to each other _in their own heads!_ Aphrodite may have asked for Drew instead of Lacy or Mitchell to play matchmaker."

"She could play matchmaker with Lacy and Nico."  
"Nah, she's got time with them." The guys looked up to see the girls staring at them.

"Shouldn't you be saving you boyfriends?" Percy asked pointing at Dakota. The girls looked over and saw the only brunette, Kelsey, navigating the isles.

"Koa!" Gwen exclaimed, zigzagging to get there. Annabeth looked at Percy and Grover and sat with them.

"Were you really talking about who likes who right now Seaweed Brain? And why aren't you affected?"

"Satyr"

"Yes, Aphrodite has this _plan _for the boys to be saved by their crushes. And, apparently, since I accept that I am in love, I'm not affected. They are getting affected because they haven't found their love, are in love, or incredibly confused about it. I have no idea why Chris is affected though. They probably haven't used the 'L' word, yet."

"And how do you know so much?"

"Aphrodite's invaded my personal thoughts."

"Ah"

"Where did Ashlyn go?"

"She should be here."

And, of course, Ashlyn chose that moment to jump from behind the isle behind Leo.

"Oh my god. We have to help him. No one likes Leo!"

Hazel and Reyna made their way towards Leo, noticing no one else was. (Or some other reason, hmm Reyna? Hazel? _I have a boyfriend Aphrodite!_). Hazel used her Calvary sword to strike from behind but Ashlyn sensed it or something, and ducked out of the way. Reyna stabbed at her. The fight went on like this for a few minutes.

"Would you just die already!"

_Hazel, drop out. It's Venus. Stop fighting, let Reyna handle it. I want to work on project Leyna._ **(3)**

Project Leyna?  
_Leo and Reyna! Why do only my children understand couple names?_

But what about Reyna?

_She can handle it. Stop fighting!_

Hazel stopped fighting and Reyna looked at her like she had lost it. Reyna stabbed Ashlyn in the arm and watched as she exploded.

"What was that about?"

"Aphrodite, matchmaking, and Leyna." Reyna still thought Hazel had lost it. The enchantment around the boys broke.

"What happened to Ashlyn?" Travis asked.

"Monster, empousa… blame my mother." Piper told him. "She and 3 friends got murdered by our awesomeness!" **(4)**

"….okay. Can we get back to Olympus with the rest of our candy? I _actually _want to read the books."

"You just want to hear my thoughts about all of you." Percy grumbled.

"Of course!"

"Let's go."

And the demigods set off to Olympus.

* * *

**A/N- TADA! Review, favorite, SOMETHING! :) **

**(1) hint new fanfiction**

**(2) hint again**

**(3) Oooh, i see another story**

**(4) My friends and I say that all the time**

**LATER YA PEOPLES!**

**~BBB**


	7. My mother teaches me bullfighting

**A/N- ONE MORE DAY! ONE MORE DAY UNTIL MARK OF ATHENA! :) So happy!. And don't expect chapters so fast, i was working on this the same time i was working on the last chapter so vala- Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer- If i was Rick Riordan, i would be trying to sort out the chaos for the BIG SELLOUT! But I'm here, typing, so I'm not him, therefore, i do not own any of these peoplesm**

* * *

Once everyone came back from the candy shop incredibly hyper and jumpy the demigods sat down and Grover began to read.

"**My mother teaches me bullfighting"|**

Grover and Percy shivered. This would _not _be a good chapter.

'Since when can Sally bullfight?" Apollo asked leaning forward

"She can't" Poseidon frowned.

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

"I wonder if I could make those" Rachel thought out loud.

"Can you make me some?" Connor asked.

"And me? "His brother added.

"And –"

"I get it! I'll take orders at the end of the chapter."Rachel told them.

"Those would not look good. At all" Drew wrinkled her nose.

"Hey!" Grover and Rachel protested. She smirked at them.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

"Must've been pleasant" Piper said sarcastically.

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

**Grover's eyes flitted to the rear view mirror, though there were no cars behind us. **

"If only it had been a car."

**"Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

**"Watching me?"**

"Stalker," Travis, Connor, Nico, Chris, Dakota, and Will sang.

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I ****_am _****your friend."**

**"Urn ... what ****_are _****you, exactly?"**

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

"Oooh, he's not gonna like that" Dionysus said. He saw everyone stare at him "What? You took my wine magazines; I've got nothing better to do."

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty ****_"Blaa-ha-ha!"_**

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

**"I'm a ****_goat _****from the waist down"**

"You just said it didn't matter." Jason said

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

"No! My brother's becoming a second Percy!" Thalia cried."One was bad enough!"

**_"Blaa-ha-ha!_** **There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a ****_myth, _****Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

**"So you ****_admit _****there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

"Really? You're bringing that up now?" Reyna asked.

"Yes… You would too if you thought you belonged in a mental hospital!"

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. **

"It should be" Grover murmured.

"Not to new people, Goat Boy" reminded Thalia.

**"We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

"Again, half the gods, monsters, Kronos, Ga-"Nico stopped abruptly. The gods learning of Kronos would be bad enough, them learning about Gaia and the Giants would be worse.

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"Grover!" Katie exclaimed.

**"Grover!"**

Katie smiled.

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

"Please, please, please" Poseidon chanted.

"Dad, can chant all you like, it's not going to make a difference"

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

"Camp Half-Blood!" yelled the Greeks.

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

"You make it sound so stupid" Malcolm muttered

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in ****_me._****"**

**"I meant ****_you, _****like 'someone.' Not you, ****_you._****"**

"What?" Gwen asked

""I have no idea…" Annabeth said.

"It's boy talk! We have no chance to understand it." Concluded Thalia, acting like it was a big declaration.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

"_Thank _you" Hylla, Artemis, and Thalia said together.

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.** **"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

Poseidon began to chant again.

**I didn't know where ****_there _****was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really ****_hadn't _****been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"No duh" Muttered most of the throne room.

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling ****_boom! , _****and our car exploded.**

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

People looked at Zeus.

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

**Lightning. That was the only explanation. **

People glared at Zeus

"Daaaddddd" Jason and Thalia whined.

**We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

"Awww, how sweet, he cares for his friend" Aphrodite cooed.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

"You knew there was hope when he groaned _food?" _Will asked, snickering.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

Hades and Athena bolted up in their seats, realizing the monster. To protect himself, Hades materialized armor around him.

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

**_"What?"_**

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

"That's me!" Thalia shouted with a huge grin on her face.

"You were a tree?" The Romans, Leo, and Piper gasped.

"Moving on"

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

**"No!" I shouted. "You ****_are _****coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

"How sweet" Said A- you can guess.

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he ****_couldn't _****be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …**

"Hades!" Poseidon bellowed. The gods looked worried for the hero and his mother.

**"He doesn't want ****_us_****," my mother told me. "He wants ****_you. _****Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat,** **at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

"Oh. My. Gods." Most demigods said slowly. (The ones who didn't know)

"What is it?" Leo asked cluelessly. Piper whispered to him.

"Oh gods. How are you still alive?"

"We ask ourselves this every day, Leo" Nico told him. "We have yet to receive an answer"

"'Cause I have no idea myself"

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

"So sweet!"

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

"That needs to be cut" Demeter whispered.

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of ****_Muscle Man _****magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear.**

People snickered.

**I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would've looked funny,**

The room was silent for a moment, before Leo started laughing, which caused a chain reaction, and soon the entire room cracked up, lessening the tension.

**Except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

And the tension's back.

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

"You have the weirdest thoughts, they could rival Leo's" Piper informed Percy. "Seriously? 'points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener', Wow"

"Hey!"

"Yeah! No one beats my odd thoughts!" objected Percy.

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

"Too bad" Hazel muttered. "He is"

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

"People always say that but it never makes a difference, what's the point?" Pollux complained

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

"His hearing and sight are terrible. He'll find you with smell." Athena said immediately.

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

"Smart women"

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

**_Not a scratch, _****I remembered Gabe saying.**

"Oops." Everyone who had read the last chapter said.

**Oops.**

People grinned a little, despite the tense mood.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

"Sally is anything but selfish!" Nico yelled, Sally had been the mother he couldn't remember.

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

"Dun Dun Duuuun…." The Stolls said. Katie probably would have slapped them, but she knew they were just trying to ease the mood. And they knew how it would end, so there's that.

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us. My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

"Gross" Aphrodite shivered

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

"Crap" Frank murmured, knowing how it was to lose his mother. And Sally was so similar to his mother…

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eying my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

"No" Poseidon moaned.

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

"Sally!" The whole room whispered.

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.**

Hades, who had slouched still wearing his armor, sat upright, realizing she hadn't died. So had Hestia, Athena, Artemis, Hephateus and, surprisingly, Ares.

**"No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

"So sw-"

"Aphrodite! Shut up! Let's just make sure they live right now!"

Percy leaned over and whispered to Annabeth, "They do know we're still alive, right?"

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

"Really, is that all you got?" Ares asked

"Prissy, you can do better than that" Clarisse groaned.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea**

"I hope it's stupid" Nico declared.

"Why?" Jason asked. It was his sister answered

"Kelp Head's stupid ideas save us while his 'good' ideas bring us closer to death then his stupid ones"

**—a stupid idea,**

"Yes!" The cousins cheered.

**but better than no idea at all.**

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

"As if" Annabeth rolled her eyes.

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

**How did I do that?**

"That's what I want to know." Ares thought aloud.

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

"So _that's _what that was" The ex-tree concluded.

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

"Gross" Aphrodite shuddered.

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.**

"Please, no chance" Ares snickered.

** The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—****_snap!_**

Peoples' eyes were wide.

"Do you have super strength?" Apollo asked.

"And he did this when he was only _twelve" _Annabeth said proudly.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

**The monster was gone.**

Everyone's mouth was on the floor.

"The Furies, the Minotaur, who's next Medusa?" Jason asked. He saw their grinning faces.

"You're not serious"

"Onward Grover!" Percy yelled.

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

"You compared me to a _princess?!" _Annabeth screeched.

"Oh Percy, do you have a death wish?" Nyssa muttered. Nico was silently thanking the gods he hadn't said anything when he had met her. As long as there weren't any books starring him he was safe. Until Percy got to the roman camp anyway. Then Annabeth would murder him slowly and painfully with everyone else. Especially Grover, Thalia, and Rachel. He shuddered at the thought

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be." **

"The one, Annabeth? I thought you liked Luke at the time?" Travis asked, wriggling his eyebrows. Annabeth hit him.

"At the time yes and I meant the one who would take me on a quest, genius."

**"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

"Who next?" Grover asked raising the book over his head. He got zapped.

"So fun," Thalia sighed. "My turn."

"No," Hera protested. "It's time for the demigods to go to bed."

This caused a lot a grumbling from the half-bloods.

"Go!"

* * *

**There! Now shoo! You need your rest if you plan to stay up and finish Mark of Athena tomorrow night. Like i will. :)**

**Later ya peoples! And tell me what you think!**

**~BBB**


	8. I play Pinocle With a horse

**A/N- Here it is! Sorry it took so long! Blame school!**

**Disclaimer-**

**Me- Are you saying I don't own PJO?**

**Percy-Yes**

**Me- Are you sure**

**Percy- Yes**

**Me- Positive?**

**Percy- YES**

**Me- My whole life has been a lie!**

* * *

After going to bed _way_ too early for the demigods taste, the gods remained in the throne room discussing the current situation.

"Oh my us! So many cute couples! Zeus! I have to work on them! Please please please pl-"

"ENOUGH!" Zeus roared. "Yes, Aphrodite, you can work on the couples! *Aphrodite squealed* If you will _shut up!"_

"Who knew Zeus said 'shut up'? He seems more likely to say 'silence or taste my bolt' don't ya think?" Apollo stage whispered to Hermes. They chuckled earning some suspicious, some annoyed, and some amused glances.

"Back to the problem at hand" Zeus continued. "Athena, what do you think is wise?"

"The decision is simple. We must spare the demigods, like Apollo said, but keep a close eye on them. Hephaestus?"

"I installed video cameras around Olympus. Everywhere. We can access them from here"

"And why did you do this?" Zeus asked

"IagreedtohelpHermesandApollo prankHera"

"What?"

"I agreed to help Hermes and Apollo prank Hera."

"Oh, big deal. _Smack! _Meet here at around six- thirteen groans- and we'll watch the demigods to figure out the future. And Aphrodite, remember you cannot play matchmaker for any of the maidens."

"But Zeus!"

"Deal with it. No pairing Thalia or Rachel with anyone. Understand?"

"Fine" Aphrodite pouted before flashing to her palace. With that, the Olympians left for their own palaces to sleep for the night.

**ààààààààààMeet Bob, he'll be your line breaker for today ßßßßßßßßßßßßß**

*The next morning- weather- sunny, clear, warm, with a chance of flirting.*

_Percy's room (The gods are watching)_

"Percy. Percy. Percy!" Annabeth continued to try to wake her boyfriend who was, until very recently, MIA. Nothing worked. "Percy Triton Jackson! Wake up or you don't get blue waffles!"

Needless to say he sat upright immediately.

"Good Percy, now go brush your teeth so while I make you waffles. Understand?"

He nodded.

_Around the table (Gods are still watching)_

"Where's Percy and Annabeth?" Leo asked. "I want to eat!"

"Typical Leo." Jason said, smiling. He continued to talk to the Romans about his past life. (Ignoring Octavian's comments like 'You were a worse praetor then Percy' and 'You wouldn't stand a chance with Reyna anyway')

"So Sister Drew," Piper started. "All nastiness aside, how long do you think it will take for Travis to ask out Katie?" *The table suddenly shook from Aphrodite's shriek*

"Eh, they've been at camp around seven years, he's liked her for five of them, gets her attention by pranks, unsuccessful. He's just scared of being rejected. But he hasn't manned up enough to ask her so… it'll take a while."

"Ah, but Sister Drew, we now have mother's help"

"Why do you keep calling me Sister Drew? And you have an excellent point. But I will never admit I said that."

"I keep calling you Sister Drew because I feel like it. And why did you save Connor at the candy shop?"

"What is this? 20 questions?"

"Yes."

"Fine then." An evil grin spread across Drew's face. Piper did not like this grin, at all, it symbolized the end of her love-life. "So, who would you date if Jason-"Drew was (Thankfully) interrupted when Annabeth and Percy came in. Piper had never been happier to see Annabeth. She mouthed a quick _thank you _to the blonde standing over the waffle maker. She looked at Percy, trying to figure out how he was the great hero of Camp Half-Blood. He radiated power, like Jason did. He was strong, and even Piper could tell he could easily take Jason down in a fight. He didn't look like much, but then again, looks can be deceiving. He was hot, sure, but nothing compared to Jason in her eyes. Smelling waffles, Piper looked at Annabeth, who was adding blue food coloring to the waffles.

"WAFFLES!" Leo screamed, starling everyone. The rest of breakfast was a lot of eating, joking, and laughing, like a family.

And the gods watched their family smiling and laughing along with their children. **(This makes them sound like stalkers)**

**àßàßàßàßàßàßà Bob's back! ßàßàßàßà**

As the demigods settled into their seats the gods looked at them with amused expressions. Aphrodite was smiling so much, just thinking of the new couples.

"Aphrodite's smiling. This can't be good" Travis whispered to Katie.

"No way. It means Camp Half-Blood, or the Roman Camp, will have a new couple before the day is done"

**"I Play Pinochle With A Horse." **Thalia read.

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

"Gee, wonder where those came from." Connor said sarcastically

**I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered-popcorn, only it was pudding. **

"Ambrosia," The demigods sighed happily.

**The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me,** **smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

"Wonder who that could be." Aphrodite said looking at Annabeth along with everyone else in the room.

** When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**

**I managed to choke, "What?"**

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**

**"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't . . ."**

Nico and Thalia gasped, looked at Annabeth, then at Percy, then back at Annabeth. "Did you actually expect him to know something?"

"I know, right? What was I thinking?"

**Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.  
The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

"Aww. He already misses you" Drew and Aphrodite cooed.

**A husky dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes-at least a dozen of them-on his cheeks, his forehead, the back of his hands.**

"Argus" Hera told the Romans.

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surrounding, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries.**

**There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.**

**My hand was so weak. I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.**

**"Careful," a familiar voice said.**

**Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

**Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover. Not the goat boy.**

Many of the Greeks grinned at each other before screaming "GOAT BOY"

Zeus had been thinking how Grover seemed familiar and he just couldn't put his finger on it.

**So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And . . .**

**"You saved my life," Grover said. "I . . . well, the least I could do . . . I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."**

**Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

"So that's how you got the horn."

**"The Minotaur," I said.**

**"Um, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"**

**"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur, Half man, half bull."**

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**

**"My mom. Is she really . . ."**

**He looked down.**

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.** **My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

"That's so deep" Katie sighed

**"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm-I'm the worst satyr in the world."**

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

**"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

**As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, well, that settles it.**

**Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.**

Travis and Connor shared identical grins.

** But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs.**

**All that meant was my mom had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with . . . Smelly Gabe? **

"No way Chiron would ever let that happen." Clarisse stated.

**No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets fist. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. **

**I'd do something.**

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid-poor goat, satyr, whatever -looked as if he expected to be hit.**

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

**"Yes, it was. I was supposed to ****_protect_**** you."**

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

**"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least . . . I was. Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here."**

**He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was my chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies-but my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the ships still melting. **

"Nectar" The demigods sighed again.

**Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

**"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

**"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

**"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just . . . wondered."**

"What would happen if a faun drank nectar?" Frank pondered.

"Well, we would burst into flames and sand would replace what were our bones" Said a certain satyr

"Ouch"

**"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Homemade."**

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

**"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

**"That's good," He said. "That's good, I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff."**

"For Percy, that's very good. For Nancy, not so much" Gwen said happily.

**"What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture**, **an open-air pavilion, and amphitheater, a circular arena- except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

**The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hairs so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels-what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turn middle-aged in a trailer park. **

"EXCUSE ME?" Dionysus roared. Everyone (Even his sons) suppressed their laughter. What a fitting description.

**He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in one of Gabe's poker party, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.**

**"That's Mr. D." Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite.**

**The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper,** **but she's been here longer than just about anybody, and you already know Chiron . . ."**

**He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

**"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice B.**

**"Ah, good, Percy. Now we have four for pinochle."**

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh.**

**"Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

**"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was something I had learned from living with Gabe, it as how to tell when an adult had been hitting the happy juice. **

**If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

Connor poked Percy's legs. "What the Ha-"

"He is not a satyr! Therefore, Mr. D is no stranger to alcohol!"

People applauded while rolling their eyes.

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**

**She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us.**

**"This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

**She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, **except** her eyes ruined.**

"Excuse me?"

"I meant I thought a stereotypical California Girl would have blue eyes" he laughed nervously.

**They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

"She doesn't need to. She already can." Malcolm laughed.

**She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, ****_You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that._**

"What was I thinking?" Percy asked

"Yeah, if _Annabeth _said that, we would know the world was going to end." Thalia snickered

"Why did the Mayans say the world would end in 2012 anyway?" Leo questioned

Apollo decided to speak up for his awesomeness "Me and Hermes wanted to play a prank on the-"

"I get it."

**Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

….Silence….

Then…

The throne room erupted with laughter.

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

**"So," I said, anxious to change the subject, "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

**"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."**

**"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D . . . does that stand for something?"**

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

**"Oh. Right, Sorry."**

**"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

**"House call?"**

**"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate.** **I convinced the other Latin teacher to . . . ah, take a leave of absence."**

"Shame, Chiron, shame" Will said.

**I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

**"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

"Cue the ego!" Thalia and Nico declared.

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."**

**"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**

**"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

"**You****_ do_**** know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyes me suspiciously.**

**"I'm afraid not," I said.**

**"I'm afraid not, ****_sir,_****" he said.**

**"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**

"We've all been through that." Nyssa said

**"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all****_ civilized_**** young men to know the rules."**

**"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said.**

**"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun-Chiron-why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"**

**Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."**

**The camp director dealt the cards, Grover flinched every time one landed on his pile.**

**Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.**

**"Percy," he said. "Did you mother tell you nothing?"**

People looked at the floor.

**"She said . . ." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."**

**"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"**

**"What?" I asked.**

**He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**

**"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."**

**"Orientation film?" I asked.**

"It's awesome!" Nico yelled

"For an orientation film it is pretty awesome."Pollux agreed

**"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"-he pointed to the horn in the shoe box-"that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either lad. ** **What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods-the forces you call the Greek gods-are very much alive."**

**I stared at the others around the table.**

**I waited for somebody to yell, ****_No!_**** But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**

**"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, can I have your Diet Coke can?"**

**"Eh? Oh, all right."**

**Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**

**"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."**

**"Well, now," Chiron said. "God-capital ****_G_****, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."**

"That's so confusing!" Dakota groaned.

**"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"**

**"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**

**"Smaller?"**

**"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."**

**"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."**

**And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloudless day. **

**"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**

**"But they're stories," I said. "They're-myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."**

"**Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody- "What will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo.**

"** That's what. Oh, I love mortals-they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come ****_so-o-o_**** far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**

**I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if . . . he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**

**"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that ****_immortal_**** mean immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**

**I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

"And yet you turned it down" Nico shoook his head.

**"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**

**"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call ****_you _****a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**

"Percy isn't a myth, he's a legend" Chris informed the gods. And hearing his new friends talk so highly of Percy, Jason couldn't help but feel a teeny, tiny bit jealous.

**My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. **

**"I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."**

**"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you." **

**Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."**

**"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe!"**

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**

**My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.**

**"Mr. D, he warned, "your restrictions."**

**Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

**"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**

"Please" Zeus snorted.

**More thunder.**

**Mr. D waved his hand again and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.**

**Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**

"Ohhhh" Piper said.

**"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**

**"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time. Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time-well, she was pretty, and I couldn't stay away-the second time. He sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha! Absolutely unfair."**

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**

**"And . . ." I stammered, "your father is . . ."**

**"Di ****_immortals,_**** Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."**

**I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs seemed to work here. They way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**

**"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."**

**Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, "Well, duh!'?"**

**"Y-yes, Mr. D."**

**"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

Aphrodite looked offended.

**"You're a god."**

**"Yes, child."**

**"A god. You."**

People around the room laughed.

**He turned to look at me straight on and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

**"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**

"**No. No, sir."**

**The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**

**"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**

**I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher.**

"Too many times" Dionysus sadly said.

**He got up, and Grover rose, too.**

**"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need a talk, ****_again_****, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**

"I think he did pretty good." Will said.

**Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes sir."**

**Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."**

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

**"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been . . . ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**

**"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a place there?"**

**"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**

**"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like . . . in ****_America?_****"**

**"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the west."**

**"The what?"**

**"Come on, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied to tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know-or as I hope you know, since you passed my course-the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps-Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on-but the same forces, the same gods."**

"Rome!" The Romans yelled.

**"And then they died."**

**"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in painting, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus and Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not-and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond or Rome, either-America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**

**It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club.**

**"Who are you, Chiron? Who . . . who am I?"**

**Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**

**"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."**

"Chocolate" was heard through the room.

**And he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof.**

**Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.**

"That's creepy." Hazel shivered.

**I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**

**"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep, **

"Fetlocks" Nico snickered. "Fun word."

**Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

"Jason! Think fast!" Thalia said before chucking the book at Jason's head.

"What the Hades Thals?"

"That was funner. And faster."

"Just start reading." Octavian sniffed.


	9. Supreme Lord of Toliets!

**Here it is! Blame 3 diffrent clubs, 1 sport, and... DUN, DUN, DUN...HOMEWORK! that it took so long. And because of all this I can't update any faster then i already do, ecspecially, since my dad is using my laptop for some video program. And last, THANK GOD for spell check.**

**Disclaimer: (Sorry it's not creative, it 9;30 on a school night with a cold, sue me)**

**I don't own PJO because unless someone has mental issues, i do ****_not _****look like the Great Rick Riordan**

* * *

**"I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom" **Jason read.

Apollo's eyes widened as he heard this. He looked at Hermes, "God of toilets"

Hermes grinned while everyone else looked disgusted.

Clarisse looked at Annabeth, and then Percy, who was whistling ever so innocently, then groaned and looked back at Annabeth. "This chapter is about the _first _incident,isn't it?"

Annabeth shrugged. "Probably"

**Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving** **Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, but I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.**

Will frowned. "I think Chiron would be insulted."

**We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's ****_him_****."**

**Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.**

"No, we were expecting you to burst into flames and scare the Ares kids" Travis said seriously.

**I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane** **on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.**

The older Greek demigods shivered at the mention of that cursed mummy.

**"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.**

**He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."**

**"Somebody lives there?"**

**"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."**

"At least he's telling the truth" Nyssa commented.

**I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.**

**"Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."**

**We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe. Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."**

**He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, **

Mr. D huffed indignantly.

**So they grew strawberries instead. I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.**

"Grover? Please" Drew snickered.

"Hey!"

**I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.**

"Yep" Grover sighed. "He was scarier than usual"

**"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean ... he was a good protector. Really."**

**Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable.**"

"But he did it anyway" Percy declared proudly.

**To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."**

**"But he did that!"**

**"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide.**

"Stupid old goats" Percy muttered.

"I hate them almost as much as I hate that cursed camp." Dionysus told everyone.

"Why don't you fire them?" Thalia asked

"Hmm… perhaps. Maroon and Silenus are just fine, I never liked Ginkgo, and Lineaus would do well as a Lord of the Wild. Yes, yes…" He trailed off.

** I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."**

** I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.**

Percy looked down guiltily.

**"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"**

**Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that ****_was _****Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago.**

Zeus began to connect the pieces.

_Grover… a satyr…5 years…second chance. THAT GOAT GOT MY DAUGHTER KILLED! _Zeus thought angrily. He started to rise.

_ZEUS! _Several voices screamed in his head.

_Be logical father, you need proof. And Apollo said not to harm _any _of the children. _

Zeus sat down with one question pestering him, _since when does Athena listen to Apollo?_

**Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."**

**"How old is he?"**

**"Oh, twenty-eight."**

"Twenty-Eight?!" yelped several startled demigods/

"Well…Now I'm 32" Grover compromised.

Annabeth, Thalia, and Percy grinned at their satyr friend.

**"What! And he's in sixth grade?"**

**"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."**

"That's terrible!" Piper shrieked.

**"That's horrible."**

**"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."**

**"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"**

"Yes, it really was," Zeus sneered

**Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"**

**But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word ****_death. _****The beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.**

**"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ..."**

**"Yes, child?"**

**"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"**

Jason stared at Percy, as did most everyone in the room

"Are you _insane?"_

"Maybe, possibly, probably…"

"Definitely" Annabeth interrupted.

**Chiron's expression darkened.**

**"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now ... until we know more ... I would urge you to put that out of your mind."**

**"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"**

**"**Like if she's really dead, why she disappeared the way she did, if it was really Hades, if we were able to stop the oncoming war… need I go on?" Grover listed.

"War?" Ares and Athena asked together. Ares was so excited, his glasses started to burn.

**"Come, Percy. Let's see the woods."**

"He needs to learn to change topics, without depressing people" Katie said.

**As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.**

**Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."**

**"Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"**

"Oh, you know, monsters, dryads, and gnats." Connor answered, then leaned over to Travis and stage whispered, "The gnats are worse than most the monsters." *** **

**"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"**

"What kind of question is that?" Gwen asked.

**"My own—?"**

**"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."**

**I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much),** **the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheatre, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.**

**"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.**

**"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually.** **Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."**

"He makes it sound so safe" Octavian commented dryly.*****

"But he's still an amazing teacher, so shut that thing you call a face" Thalia shot back. **(Who can see Thalia saying something like that?)**

"Well how 'bout you go and-"Jason began to read again before Octavian could finish his sentence.

**Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.**

**"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.**

**Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird.**

"I asked that too!" All of the Greeks yelled.

**"We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.**

**Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them,**

"I could swear there were more…" Leo **trailed** off.

"We added new ones" Annabeth informed him.

**Nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.**

**Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory.**

Leo, Hephaestus and Nyssa cheered.

**Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass.**

Demeter and her daughters cheered.

**Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. **

Apollo made a sheet of sunlight, much like the ones used in his cabin at camp. Which, of course, momentarily blinded everyone.

"Apollo!" Artemis screamed. "It's too bright!"

"Really Dad?!" Will yelled.

And the sheet vanished.

**They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).**

"Of course you would point that out" Thalia teased.

**In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined fire pit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.**

Almost unknowingly, people looked at Hestia, who was smiling at the fact that another great demigod had seen her.

**The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them.**

Thalia and Jason cheered half-heartly at their cabin.

**Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.**

Hera had a small smile (But still a bigger smile then most Olympians had seen) on face.

**"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.**

**"Correct," Chiron said.**

**"Their cabins look empty."**

**"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."**

"Now they do" Piper corrected.

**Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.**

"I'm really not sure if I should be insulted or not" Hera sniffed.*****

"It's Percy, you hate him already, he hates you already, go ahead and be insulted." Annabeth replied.

**Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?**

"Because they are _forbidden _from having kids" Hera answered.

"Well… not forbidden exactly…" Zeus started

"Oh, you are now, and I'm sure Amphitrite and Persephone would agree."

**I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.**

**It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor.**

"It's like he's drawn to his dad."Demeter noticed.

**I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"**

**Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, **

Thalia and Jason shared a look. It may not be the best, but they both agreed it sounded better then cabin one and Hippie Zeus.

**I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."**

**Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.**

**Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists.**

"'Cause it was." Clarisse said grinning wickedly with her father.

**The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit,**

"I am way better then that wuss!" Clarisse remonstrated. **(Heh heh… New word in ELA)**

"You have no idea…" Grover shivered.

** Though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.**

People compared the book's description to Clarisse and decided it was pretty accurate. Drew also decided she needed to convince her cabin mates to give Clarisse a make-over, without death this time.

**I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed.**

**"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, **

**I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."**

**"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really ..."**

**He smiled down at me. ****_"The _****Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."**

**"But, shouldn't you be dead?"**

"Do you have any tact? At all?" Gwen asked, incredulous.

**Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about ****_should _****be. The truth is, I ****_can't _****be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."**

**I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.**

Most of the demigods (except for two certain children of Athena) disagreed.

**"Doesn't it ever get boring?"**

**"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."**

**"Why depressing?" **

"Because heroes die" Reyna said sadly**. **

**Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.**

**"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."**

**The blonde girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven. When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.**

Everyone snickered.

**I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek.** **There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.**

**"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"**

**"Yes, sir."**

**"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."**

**Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on ****_old._**

"But we still call it home" Connor announced proudly.

**The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it...?**

"A caduceus" Athena answered.

**A caduceus.**

**Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.**

"I hated that" Chris said. "Way too many people."

**Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.**

**"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner."**

**He galloped away toward the archery range. I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.**

**"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."**

**So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself.**

"You know, naturally. " Leo laughed.

"I wouldn't be talking, you'd probably do the same thing" Jason snickered.

Travis sighed. "Gods, that was hilarious. I wish I had videotaped it."

"Fear not, brother! I did!" Connor declared.

"And you didn't tell me? Dude, that's blackmail _gold"_

**There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.**

**Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven."**

**"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.**

**I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."**

**Everybody groaned.**

**A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward.**

"Luke" Annabeth sighed.

**"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."**

**The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.**

The older Greek demigods looked at the floor, but Hermes brightened considerably.

**"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing.**

"Ooooh" Aphrodite squeaked. "Love triangle!"

"Should I bother telling her we're not gonna date for four years?" Annabeth whispered to Percy.

"Nah, let her be happy, she's probably all depressed if she has to date Ares"

**She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor, for now."**

**"For now?" I asked.**

**"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."**

**I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, **

"Go ahead Percy, set it down." Hermes said with an evil grin.

**But then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.**

"Damn" The god of thieves cursed.

**I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.**

**"How long will I be here?" I asked.**

**"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."**

**"How long will that take?"**

**The campers all laughed. **

"You guys must have lacked entertainment." Katie figured.

**"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."**

**"I've already seen it."**

**"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.**

"They must have been really entertainment deprived." Gwen agreed.

**When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."**

**"What?"**

**She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."**

"Awww… Are you sure he's not?" Aphrodite whined.

Annabeth face palmed.

**"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I killed some bull guy—"**

**"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"**

**"To get killed?"**

"You know, he has a point" Piper pointed out.

"He does, but back then _everyone _wanted a quest or fight a major monster" Malcolm corrected.

"So back then, people _wanted _to get killed?"

"Not die, but yes, actually use the training."

**"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"**

**I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was ****_the _****Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..."**

**"Yes."**

**"Then there's only one."**

**"Yes."**

**"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? ** **Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."**

**"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."**

Leo groaned, "This concept gives me a headache"

Athena looked puzzled. "How could this be hard to understand? It's not that complex, monsters just die and come back. Nothing to it."

**"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."**

**"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them arche types. Eventually, they re-form."**

**I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"**

**"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."**

**"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"**

**"You talk in your sleep."**

**"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"**

**Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.**

"Unfortunately, I can't do that at Camp Half-Blood" Hades sighed.

**"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."**

**"Look, is there anything we ****_can _****say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."**

**I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or... your parent."**

"Which sounds stupid" Octavian sneered.

**She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.**

**"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said.** **"She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."**

**"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."**

**"He's dead. I never knew him."**

**Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids.**

_"Way _too many times" complained said blonde.

**"Your father's not dead, Percy."**

**"How can you say that? You know him?"**

**"No, of course not."**

"Hi, I'm Poseidon. I'm Percy's father, nice to meet you. There, now you do" Introduced the Sea God, to the amusement of everyone in the room.

**"Then how can you say—"**

**"Because I know ****_you._** **You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."**

**"You don't know anything about me."**

**"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."**

**"How—"**

**"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."**

"That won't help, it'll only embarrass him" Thalia decided.

**I tried to swallow my embarrassment.**

_"See?" _ Thalia gloated.

"How did you know that?" Dakota asked.

"Because that's how I would feel."

** "What does that have to do with anything?"**

**"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek.** **And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."**

"I now get why I hated all my teachers!" Travis learned.

"No, I bet they you hated them because they hated you, probably because you were the class clown" Katie figured.

**"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"**

**"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."**

**"Ambrosia and nectar?"**

**"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."**

**A half-blood.**

**I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.**

**Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"**

**I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin** **was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.**

"I would be insulted, but it's Percy, I've learned not to take anything he says seriously" Clarisse informed the gods.

**"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"**

**"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."**

**_''Erre es korakas!"_** **Annabeth said, **

"Annabeth! Language!" Connor yelled.

"You're one to talk!"

**Which I somehow under stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. **

"Oh, trust me, it is" Thalia grinned.

**"You don't stand a chance."**

**"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. **

**She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"**

**"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."**

**I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"**

**Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"**

**"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."**

"He taunts have improved considerably" Chris nodded.

**Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."**

The Greeks gasped.

"So that-"

"What the-"

"READ JASON!" Clarisse yelled

**"Percy."**

**"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."**

**"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say.**

**"Stay out of it, wise girl."**

The Greeks gasped again.

"So Clarisse started the Wise Girl-"

"_She _started those nicknames?!"

"READ JASON!" Annabeth and Clarisse yelled again.

**Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep. I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.** **I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. **

Travis shivered. "I tried to arm wrestle her when she came, I ended up with a concussion"

"I'm not even going to ask how arm wrestling got you a concussion" Katie said, shaking her head.

**She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I ****_could _****think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.**

Silence. A snicker. Several more… and the room erupted into laughter. Jason began to read when everyone calmed down.

**Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.**

**"Like he's 'Big Three' material," **

"Oh, the irony" Will laughed

**Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."**

**Her friends snickered.**

**Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.**

"I was not!" Annabeth remonstrated.

"Yes you were!" Percy and Clarisse chirped.

**Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.**

"Still stubborn" Nico grinned

**Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach.**

"Oh, she's dead" Frank snickered at his half-sister.

**I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, **making** an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.**

"So that's… And you were…We thought you fell in the lake!" Travis laughed.

**I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall. She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her.**

**But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away. As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started. **

"Sweet" Breathed Leo.

**The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared.**

Said girl shivered. "Never. Again."

**She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.**

**I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.**

"Sweet" Leo repeated.

**I stood up, my legs shaky.**

**Annabeth said, "How did you ..."**

**"I don't know."**

"I really should have figured out you were a son of Poseidon then" Annabeth commented.

**We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. **

**She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."**

"Not dead. Toy for the gods, hunted by monsters, and 'pawn 'for Gaea, but not dead" Percy listed.

Annabeth sat upright. "What's this about Gaea?"

"Nothing…"

**I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."**

"Again, his insults have gotten _much _better" Clarisse repeated

**Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.**

**Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.**

"Both" Annabeth shrugged.

**"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"**

**"I'm thinking," She said, "That I want you on my team for capture the flag."**

"I can't believe _that _is what you learned." Athena shook her head.

"Anyway, Piper, you wanna read?" Jason asked

"Sure"

* * *

**Ta-Da!**

***I.. Freakin. Hate. Gnats. Other then Mondays, they are the bane of my excistence.**

***I'm thinking of taking out Octavian, he'll just be a mean buzz kill**

*** And I hate Hera soooo much**

**LAST!**

**HOW MANY PEOPLE HAD THEIR MOUTH ON THE FLOOR AT THE END OF MOA?! REALLY!? BE HONEST! STUPID CLIFFY!**


	10. My dinner goes up in smoke

**A/N Oh my gods. You guys probably hate me, i haven't been on here in for****_ever._**** I am the ****_worst _****procrastinator like, ****_ever._**** But...I still finished! So here you are.**

**Disclaimer: Last time i looked in the mirror, i was a ****_girl _****in ****_middle school, _****so, i am not Rick Riordan, therefore, I do not own PJO**

* * *

**"My Dinner Goes up in Smoke," **Piper began.

**Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately.**

"And you were surprised?" Malcolm asked, looking amused. 

**Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.**

Annabeth and Clarisse shivered together.

**She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man),**

"His name is Pan!" Hermes exclaimed.

**and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava,**

"The lava makes a pretty good hot tub," Mused Leo. Sharing a look, Travis and Connor gave identical smirks

"Well Percy," Travis began

"Leo, how about a deal?" Connor added

"We can make camp more even more awesome. We just need…"

"…Both of you."Connor ended

Leo agreed immediately. Percy, however, hesitated, before looking at Annabeth, then back at the Stolls. "I guess" Connor pulled out a notepad before whispering furiously with Travis. The other demigods only heard snatches of the conversation like, "Convince Chiron…" and "Get on Mr. D's good side…"

"I'm jealous…" Frank whispered to Hazel. "Why can't we have a hot tub?"

She smiled and whispered back "Because we have Roman baths and an OCD statue. We've got the better deal"

**and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.**

"I almost die on that every time" Piper sighed, looking up.

"Don't stop now!" Apollo told her. "Get on with the story!"

"Alright! Jeez…"

**Finally we returned to** **the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.**

**"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."**

**"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."**

**"Whatever."**

**"It wasn't my fault."**

"Yes it was" Athena glared.

**She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.**

Hermes and Apollo snickered. "One with the plumbing" Hermes recited.

**"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.**

**"Who?"**

**"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."**

"Rachel is not a _what. _The Oracle is not a _what." _Apollo said fuming.

"The Oracle is a _what. _Rachel is _who._ " Athena argued.

**I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.** **I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.**

"You are, more or less" Poseidon reasoned.

**I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.**

**"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."**

"Ooooh… _Somebody's _jealous" Sang Drew.

**Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."**

**"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"**

"I can name a few." Thalia muttered glancing at Nico. Then she looked at Leo. Then the Stolls. Then Percy. "More then a few, actually."

Annabeth nodded her head. "I think half the kids are mentally disturbed."

**"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."**

**"Half-human and half-what?"**

**"I think you know."**

**I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.**

**"God," I said. "Half-god."**

**Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."**

**"That's ... crazy."**

"No, Poseidon isn't crazy. That's Hades. "Demeter corrected

"And Apollo" Artemis piped up.

"You forgot the Drunken Idiot" Athena said, glancing at Dionysus.

"Hey!" Protested Hades, Apollo, and Dionysus.

**"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans** **and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"**

**"But those are just-" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth.**

**"But if all the kids here are half-gods,"**

**"Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."**

**"Then who's your dad?"**

The female gods huffed.

"Sexist much?" Gwen questioned.

**Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.**

**"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."**

**"He's human."**

**"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"**

"Oh Gods, two Annabeths. Scary. Terrifying actually." Nico shivered. Percy nodded his head.

**"Who's your mom, then?"**

**"Cabin six."**

**"Meaning?"**

**Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."**

"Whoop! Go Theeny!" Apollo cheered.

"Theeny?"

**Okay, I thought. Why not?**

**"And my dad?"**

**"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."**

**"Except my mother. She knew."**

**"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."**

**"My dad would have. He loved her."**

"Maybe not." Aphrodite reasoned. "Gods don't always do. If he did love her, he might have kept it a secret to protect her." She glanced quickly at Piper and felt a pang of regret.

**Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble.**

**"Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens."**

**"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"**

The gods looked everywhere but at the teenagers on the ground.

**Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."**

**I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.**

**"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"**

**"It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force.**

"Excuse me?" asked the children of said goddesses.

"I don't think that applies to Piper" Jason reasoned.

"Or Katie." Travis agreed. "You've never seen her actually angry."

**The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."**

"Who are some famous demigods?" Leo asked.

"George Washington. Abe Lincoln. Elvis Presley. Taylor Swift. Avril Lavigne. Adam Levine. Elton John. Bruno Mars-"Annabeth listed easily.

**"So monsters can't get in here?"**

**Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."**

**"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"**

**"Practice fights. Practical jokes."**

**"Practical jokes?"**

"You guys take camp _way _to seriously." Frank muttered.

**"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."**

**"So ... you're a year-rounder?"**

**Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.**

Athena raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.

**"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."**

**"Why did you come so young?"**

**She twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."**

"Touchy…" Connor whispered to his brother, who snickered. Unfortunately for them, Annabeth heard, and whacked them both with her dagger.

**"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"**

**"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ..."**

**"Unless?"**

**"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time..."**

**Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.**

"What happened?" Hermes asked curiously.

"Uh…" Will started. Luckily, Nyssa covered up for him.

"One of the campers traveled to the garden of the Hesperides and tried to pick an apple. Ladon didn't like that so he lunged, and then- I mean now- he has a big scar down the left side of his face."

"How do you know so much about the quest?" Thalia questioned.

"I was undetermined at the time. You should've heard some of the things Lu- I mean he said about that dragon."

**"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff-"**

**"Ambrosia."**

**"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."**

**Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know something?"**

Thalia shook her head in mock disappointment. "Shame, Annabeth, you should know by now that he knows nothing."

**"Well... no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"**

**She clenched her fists.**

**"I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."**

**"You've been to Olympus?"**

"It was rather nice before the war, wasn't it?" Katie asked, glancing around the throne room.

"Lucky them." Octavian muttered with a sour look on his face. The Stolls, who had taken note of his unpleasant expressions and mutterings, noticed this as well.

**"Some of us year-rounders Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."**

**"But... how did you get there?"**

"There are many different ways to get there: A taxi, but that's expensive, the vans, a magical poof of godly magic." Malcolm listed.

**"The Long Island Railroad, of course."**

"And then there's that."

**"You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already.**

**"You are a New Yorker, right?"**

**"Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.**

"Never argue with Annabeth about architecture." Travis said. "Bad move."

**"Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen.** **And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping ... I mean Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon."**

Aphrodite sighed. One of the great couples she had planned ruined. Maybe she could try for a Romeo and Juliet repeat. Of course, that might be a bit dry.

**"But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."**

**I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.**

**"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem-"**

**I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl. **

"It was pretty loud. Like earthquake loud." Annabeth admitted.

**She told me to go on, she'd catch me later.**

**I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.**

People snickered at this possibility, as it was probably true.

**Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles.**

**They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers.**

"Thank you Percy, that means so much" Travis said acting as if he was wiping away a tear.

**Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.**

**The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.**

**"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."**

**I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.**

"Probably not." Connor said.

**I said, "Thanks." **

**"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"**

**"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."**

**"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."**

"He seems really bitter." Gwen noticed.

"Luke reminds me of Octavian." Hazel whispered to Frank. "Not just in appearances."

**The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.**

**"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.**

**He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."**

**"The wing-footed messenger guy."**

"Is that the first thing people think of?" Hermes asked.

"Yes" came the universal reply.

**"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."**

**I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.**

**"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.**

**"Once."**

**I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.**

Annabeth shook her head. "No, that's a different story altogether."

Athena remembered hearing about the quest earlier from the daughter of Hephateus, and how that hero had a scar on his face. Could that hero be Luke?

**Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."**

"It would have been better if he had meant it." Connor muttered his expression uncharacteristically sour.

**He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him even if he was a counselor should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.**

**I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth ... twice, she said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"**

"It means that you'll be the son of one of the most powerful gods, like _ever, _and that you two will fall in love, save the world, start dating, go missing, get found, sail a flying ship(that is, if we survive the Romans), then save the world again." Pollux answered.

**Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."**

"Don't we all?" Nico said.

"No, I absolutely _love _prophecies!" Leo said cheerfully, completely missing the nasty look Octavian sent his way.

**"What do you mean?"**

**His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until...somebody special came to the camp."**

**"Somebody special?"**

"Meaning you, her future boyfriend." Drew confirmed

_"Boyfriend?" _Athena practically shouted. Aphrodite, however, looked very happy about something. "So are they together?"

Thalia sent Piper a meaningful look, which she thankfully understood meant to keep reading.

**"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for.**

"I did not!" Annabeth objected.

"Not _anymore_" Travis corrected.

"But you did." Connor added.

** Now, come on, its dinnertime."**

**The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.**

**Luke yelled, "Eleven fall in!"**

**The whole cabin, about twenty of us, **

"Only twenty?" Piper raised an eyebrow. "Camp's really grown hasn't it?"

The older campers just nodded.

**filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.**

"It's really pretty after the sun goes down." Piper sighed.

**We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. **

**Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.**

"It's weird when they do that." Nico frowned.

**In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.**

**At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.**

**I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.**

**Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.**

"Go Athena table!" Malcolm cheered.

**Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.**

Clarisse grinned happily, but all the other girls (and Octavian) looked disgusted, not including Annabeth, who was far too used to this behavior.

**Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"**

**Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"**

**Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want nonalcoholic, of course."**

Katie tilted her head. "What happens if you try for an alcoholic drink?"

"Zeus gets angry, and Dionysus congratulates you before giving you kitchen duty." Travis answered quickly.

Katie felt the corners of her mouth pull up slightly. "Know from experience do you?"

"_Obviously."_

"How else would he know?" Connor cut it.

**I said, "Cherry Coke."**

**The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.**

**Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."**

**The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.**

**I took a cautious sip. Perfect.**

Hazel gave an "oh" of realization before turning to Percy. "That's why you had a blue soda at Camp Jupiter, isn't it? It looked…really weird, actually."

Octavian snorted quietly, muttering, "Most things related to the Greeks are strange." Unfortunately for him, the Stoll brothers heard that as well.

**I drank a toast to my mother.**

"How sweet" Hera cooed before turning to her sons. "Why can't you ever do something sweet like that?"

"It would make me a pussy."

"You threw me off a _mountain!_"

**She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...**

**"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.**

**I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion.**

**I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.**

"What are you doing?" Frank asked.

"You guys don't sacrifice food?"

"No"

**"Come on," Luke told me.**

**As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest straw berry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.**

**Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."**

"You're kidding." Frank frowned.

**"You're kidding."**

Nico suddenly developed a very sad look on his face (more so then usual). "Frank," He sighed out sadly, "You're becoming even more like Percy. I am sorry to say it is only a matter of time before your head will also become kelp-filled."

**His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.**

**Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."**

**I was next.**

**I wished I knew what god's name to say.**

**Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.**

**I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.**

**When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.**

"Really?" Reyna asked with a raised eyebrow.

**It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.**

"Whoa" Gwen breathed. "Awesome."

**When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.**

**Mr. D got up with a huge sigh.**

**"Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."**

**A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.**

**"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson."**

"_Why _does Mr. D _insist _on getting names wrong?" Percy whispered to Annabeth.

"No idea"

**Chiron murmured something.**

**"Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."**

**Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along.**

"It's always so cheesy." Clarisse said, rolling her eyes.

**We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.**

**Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.**

**My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.**

**When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.**

**That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.**

**I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.**

"Ominous. What happened?" Leo asked.

"Who wants to read next?" Piper asked, marking the page. Leo was the only one who volunteered.

Piper sighed, "Fine, Repair Boy. Just don't burn it."

* * *

**TADA! That is all. And i am currently writing a story with violagirl23 about the Hunger Games in Glimmer and Clove's POV. I think it's pretty good, but that's only my opinion. LATER!**

**-BBB**


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